GREEN RIVER - Gov. Dave Freudenthal on Friday vetoed a bill that would have authorized a series of pilot projects to explore ways to bolster compensation for landowners for grass damage caused by big game animals.

The governor said House Bill 18 could cost the state a significant amount of money and marks a departure from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department's existing payment program for 'extraordinary damage' to grass by big game animals and big game birds.

Conservationists lauded the veto of a bill, saying the bill would have moved Wyoming toward the privatization of the state's game.

But Rep. Jim Hageman, R-Fort Laramie, chairman of the House Agriculture, Public Lands and Water Resources Committee which sponsored the bill, said the bill would have provided some much-deserved relief for ranchers who support wildlife on private property.

"They deserve something from the state … at least some kind of a hope that there will (eventually) be a system in which they can be compensated," he said. "And the governor doesn't have any kind of a solution for it."

The Game and Fish has long recognized that private lands are very important to the abundance and diversity of the state's wildlife. States are not liable for forage compensation unless they assume the damage as Wyoming has.

In recent years, some ranchers have suffered heavy losses, especially in areas like Cody where elk numbers have risen dramatically over the past decade.

The bill would have appropriated $300,000 for fiscal years 2005-2006. The pilot projects were to run through Jan. 1, 2009, but Freudenthal said that would have paved the way for future spending.

The governor said in a veto letter to Secretary of State Joseph Meyer that the compensation program would burden state coffers and state employees.

Freudenthal said the bill essentially duplicated a landowner license program that has been rejected previously by the public. Instead of payment in hunting licenses, payment would come from an actual appropriation.

"Whether in the form of landowner licenses or cash payments, the adoption of a general policy to compensate landowners for wildlife forage and habitat use is a drastic departure from our existing 'extraordinary damage' payment approach," the letter said.

Freudenthal noted the Game and Fish annual report estimated there is a total population of just over 1 million mule deer, pronghorn antelope, elk and moose in Wyoming.

Problem not solved

Jason Marsden, executive director of the Wyoming Conseveration Voters which opposed the bill during the session, said the bill didn't examine why big game animals such as elk are moving onto private lands in the first place.

He said more study of the loss of critical habitat, migration corridors, feedgrounds and improving access to public land is needed.

"This bill leaves the current system exactly the way it is and just creates another parallel system," Marsden said in a phone interview.

"We thought throughout this process that if there are problems with how Game and Fish is paying for extraordinary grass damage, then they should go ahead and address that program and get it to work right," he said.

"And there's practically no limit to how much this thing could have cost if it was applied statewide," Marsden said. "This is potentially budget-busting … this bill just didn't focus on the existing situation. It looked more like an opportunity for somebody to start doing aerial herd counts and start cutting checks."

But Hageman said the bill was intended to help the Game and Fish Department with the grass damage compensation program. He said adequate grass compensation is a problem that is not going to go away.

"I think that the Game and Fish is going to really regret it … they're the ones that really need it because one of these days they're going to run into a problem with people who are just getting killed with elk herds moving around," Hageman said in a phone interview.

"Those people came to us several different years and wanted us to try to do something and this is the plan we came up with," he said.